In the most significant victory for voting rights this year, a federal judge in Florida has held unconstitutional a new state requirement that felons pay their fines, fees and court costs before getting to vote again.

If the ruling, issued Sunday night by Judge Robert Hinkle in Tallahassee, survives after an expected appeal by the state, hundreds of thousands more Floridians would be able to vote this fall in the most populous swing state — which is famous for two decades of extremely narrow margins in big elections.

The ultimate impact of the decision will depend on several factors, including how successful voting rights advocates are in identifying these potential new voters and getting them registered and to the polls.

<p>Research has shown that felons who get the franchise back after their release from prison are far more likely to register as Democrats. Marc Meredith, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, and a colleague found this to be true in researching the partisan allegiance of such voters in states including New York, New Mexico, North Carolina, Iowa, Rhode Island and Maine.</p><p>But while they may tend to be more Democratic, it is also true that they are also less likely to vote at all.</p><p>Nonetheless, Hinkle's decision is a watershed moment in a year when a central story about American democracy is whether access to the voting booth should be made easier or kept difficult — and most of those questions are being forced by lawsuits across the country.</p><p>In this case, the Republican-majority Legislature and GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis produced a law last year requiring felons to pay all their court-ordered financial obligations before registering — saying that was what constituted completion of their sentence. The measure was written after 65 percent of the state's voters in 2018 decided to restore voting rights for as many as 1.4 million felons who have completed prison, probation and parole, the largest single restoration of the franchise in the nation in a generation.</p><p>Hinkle's 125-page opinion called the law a "pay-to-vote system."</p><p>There's strong reason to believe the state's expected appeal would succeed at the next level, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, since that court has already rebuffed a similar but preliminary challenge in the case.</p><p>The court unanimously upheld a ruling last October by Hinkle temporarily blocking the law, in which he held that requiring felons to repay all of their fines and fees amounted to a poll tax. Poll taxes were used in the South as a way to bar poor black people from voting and were barred by a constitutional amendment in 1964</p><p>"Now, after a full trial on the merits, the plaintiffs' evidence has grown stronger," that the court costs are a de facto poll tax, Hinkle wrote in Sunday's ruling. He presided over an eight-day trial in April, held by teleconference because of the risk of the coronavirus.</p><p>Five different lawsuits filed on behalf of convicted felons and civil rights groups were consolidated into one.</p><p>In Sunday's decision, Hinkle ruled that felons can be required to pay what courts order them to, but only if they can afford it.</p><p>There was no immediate response from DeSantis, GOP Secretary of State Laurel Lee, or President Trump, who has in recent days been weighing in through Twitter on all the voting process changes he objects to.</p><p>One issue that clearly hurt the state's case was its inability to come up with a consistent and clear method for determining what is owed by each felon. Hinkle made reference to the issue several times during court hearings and mentioned it again in his ruling.</p><p>He noted that a professor working with a team of doctoral candidates attempted to determine how much a sampling of 153 felons owed and found inconsistencies in all but three of the cases they studied.</p><p>The exact number of people who might find their voting rights restored is also in dispute. Some estimate several hundred thousand. Others peg the figure at 774,000. Hinkle put the number at nearly 1 million. (The state constitutional amendment, known as Amendment 4, continues to deny the right to vote to murderers and sex criminals.)</p><p>Whatever the number, voting rights and criminal justice reform groups hailed the decision.</p><p>"This is a landmark victory for voting rights!" Danielle Lang of the <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/campaign-legal-center" target="_self">Campaign Legal Center</a> wrote in an email. CLC filed one of the lawsuits in behalf of three people with felony convictions.</p><p>"This ruling is not only a victory for our clients and voting rights activists in Florida, but is an important step towards dismantling financial barriers to the ballot box across the country," said Nancy Abudu, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center.</p><p>Florida's congressional and legislative primaries are in 12 weeks, and it's unclear whether any appeals could be resolved by then. The Supreme Court does not customarily hear new cases before October.</p><p>The state now has 29 electoral votes, more than any state except solidly blue California and traditionally red Texas, and it has been carried by the presidential winner six straight times — almost always by extraordinary narrow margins. George W. Bush's 537-vote margin, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2000, is the most famous, but Trump prevailed four years ago by only 113,000 votes out of 9.5 million cast — a margin of just 1 point over Hillary Clinton.</p>

In his newest book, "Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back To Save Democracy," FairVote senior fellow David Daley offers a hopeful outlook as he recounts recent victories by ordinary citizens who've taken on gerrymandering in Michigan, adopted ranked-choice voting in Maine, and fought for voting rights restoration in Florida.

Colin Cole and Mohit Nair, FairVote Washington's Legislative and Partnerships team, will talk with David Daley about how ordinary citizens are leading the way to ensure that our democracy functions fairly. After all, democracy doesn't pause for a pandemic.

The most important voting rights trial of the new decade started Monday.

The case is about whether several hundred thousand newly enfranchised Florida felons will be able to cast ballots this fall in the nation's biggest swing state. More broadly, it's about the balance of power between the people and the government.

As the trial opened, lawyers for former convicts argued the clear intent of the electorate, which voted overwhelmingly for a state constitutional amendment in 2018, was to permit their clients to register as soon as they were done with prison, probation and parole. Lawyers for the Republican state government, which decided in 2019 that repayment of fines and restitution would be required as well, said that was a valid interpretation of the voters' will.

<p>Civil rights and voting rights groups argue the financial requirements amount to an unconstitutional poll tax, akin to what was used for decades to suppress the African-American vote. And in a preliminary ruling this winter, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals declared the state "may not erect a wealth barrier" to registration and blocked the law from taking effect until after the trial — and the guaranteed appeal by whichever side loses in coming weeks.</p><p>The other central complaint of the plaintiffs is that Florida has no central system for determining what felons owe or certifying they have paid up, putting an unconstitutional and impossible burden on ex-offenders to prove they are eligible to vote. The judge in the case, Robert Hinkle of Tallahassee, demanded six months ago the state rectify that problem -- but Florida officials waited until two weeks ago to sketch a procedure for determining how much a felon owes.</p><p>Hinkle kept the trial timetable on track despite the coronavirus pandemic, switching it to webcams and telephone hookups, because of the tight timeline if the outcome is to be meaningful in 2020. The Florida congressional and legislative primaries are Aug. 18. Those who wish to vote in the presidential election have until Oct. 5 to register. </p><p>The state's 29 electoral votes are the biggest prize indisputably within reach of both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump won the state by 1.2 percentage points — 113,000 votes — last time, but recent polling has Biden slightly ahead. </p><p>The ballot measure, known as Amendment 4, restored voting rights to people with felony convictions (except murderers and sex offenders) once they complete "all terms of their sentence." The subsequent law, pushed through the Republican-majority Legislature by Gov. Ron DeSantis, defines "all terms" to mean all financial obligations connected with the felons' case. The state Supreme Court in January issued an advisory opinion that supported the governor's position.</p><p>At least 775,000 felons have such obligations, about 55 percent of the total in the state who are out of prison — the largest bloc of people in modern American history who could get their voting rights back at a single time.</p><p>Daniel Smith, a University of Florida political scientist who was the opening expert witness for the plaintiffs Monday, offered that estimate and said his research shows at least 45 percent of the felons with some outstanding obligations owe more than $1,000.</p><p>He has estimated that four in five felons who owe something have not paid yet. The report he prepared for the trial looked at records from all of Florida's 67 counties but did not make clear who might qualify as too poor to pay — a key statistic because the judge has signaled the law might be permissible if there's an exemption for the indigent.</p><p>Smith has said it is impossible to quantify how many might not be able to vote under the new law because of sloppy and inconsistent record record-keeping.</p><p>Before Amendment 4, the state since Reconstruction had barred people with felony convictions from voting for life — unless they could secure permission from a clemency board made up of partisan elected officials. As the referendum campaign was getting started in 2018, a federal judge declared that system unconstitutional and said it disproportionately punished African-Americans.</p><p>Thirty other states have laws on the books similar to the one being challenged. Attorney generals for 10 of them have filed court briefs in support of Florida's case. "If states are limited in their ability to pursue re-enfranchisement alongside their other interests, some states may well throw in the towel and prohibit any felon from regaining the right to vote," they wrote. </p><p>The trial is being conducted by teleconference — with the judge, witnesses and attorneys on video because of travel and social distancing limitations. The public is permitted to listen in, unusual for a federal trial court proceeding and a reflection of the high degree of interest in the case.</p><p>"We're really grateful that the court has found a way to let this go forward in spite of the circumstances," Julie Ebenstein of the <a data-linked-post="2638969815" href="https://thefulcrum.us/american-civil-liberties-union" target="_blank">American Civil Liberties Union</a>, which is representing some of the plaintiffs, said in her opening argument.</p>

The favorites took care of business in the second round of the Voting region of our Democracy Madness bracket. Now you get to decide who heads to the "regional" finals.

Will it be the No. 1 seed, a new Voting Rights Act, which blew away the idea of expanded early voting? Or maybe No. 4, universal automatic voter registration, will keep on rolling after shutting down the call for expanded felons' voting rights.

The No 3 seed, voting at home, is the darling of the moment and ended the Cinderella run for No. 11 STAR Voting. But now it faces the No. 2 seed, ranked-choice voting, which had the most dominating win of the round — absolutely crushing another surprise performer, the No. 10 seed, a ban on straight-ticket voting.

The 2-vs-3 game may be the biggest matchup of the tournament, with RCV and vote-at-home trying to keep their momentum going. RCV has had the longer public relations campaign, but the coronavirus has made voting at home (absentee ballots sent to everyone) the story of the season. Keep your eye on that one.

<p>Remember: You can click the matchups, then each label, for more about the surviving proposals. But there are just two days for this round — so don't forget to press the Vote Now button and make all four choices.</p><p>After this quarter of the draw gets done, look for future brackets contesting ideas for reforming campaign finance, elections, civic life and Congress. Ultimately, we're looking for our readers to tell us what they view as the most transformative idea for reforming democracy out of 64 leading proposals.</p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><div class="commonninja_component" comp-id="be318521-c10f-467a-9c28-68fb035dd5f7" comp-type="bracket"></div></div><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"></div><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><script type="text/javascript"> (function() {
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.type = 'text/javascript';
script.src = 'https://cdn.commoninja.com/sdk/latest/commonninja.js';
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);
})();
</script></div>